{"id":5044,"date":"2025-06-08T20:22:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T01:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/?p=5044"},"modified":"2025-06-10T15:11:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T20:11:58","slug":"understanding-the-assignment-heavy-metals-angry-mob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/understanding-the-assignment-heavy-metals-angry-mob\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding The Assignment: Heavy Metal\u2019s Angry Mob"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A while back, I saw a Kickstarter for the return of Heavy Metal<\/em> magazine. Since I\u2019ve always been at best a casual reader, I didn\u2019t realize it had gone anywhere. But I feel like Heavy Metal<\/em> magazine something that should exist in the world, so I backed it. I back a bunch of Kickstarters, and a lot of them\u2014maybe even most\u2014don\u2019t get delivered on time. In fact, a lot of them don\u2019t get delivered at all, so my basic assumption is that when I back a Kickstarter by a creator I\u2019m not familiar with, I\u2019m basically throwing that money away. If I actually get the product, I\u2019m impressed. If it\u2019s good, even better.<\/p>\n

That being the case, I had no idea that the Heavy Metal<\/em> Kickstarter had been delayed until I got an update about it. Apparently they were getting a lot of grief for a very nerdy problem: the first issue arrived in stores before some backers got their copy. This is a disaster for the fans. I mean, if you\u2019re not the FIRST PERSON who sees it, how will you ever prove your value as a human being? Or something, I guess. In any case, a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands got Very Angry and apparently blew up the comments.<\/p>\n

The email summarized the issue, and the company\u2019s first success was making it sound like an explanation rather than excuse. Basically, the campaign got a lot more support than they ever imagined, which meant printing and shipping took longer than expected, even after they hired additional help. Meanwhile, they had fixed delivery dates by which they had to get copies of the magazine to distributors. Delivering late so fanboys could feel special might put distribution of future issues at risk, so they couldn\u2019t really change that. As a result, the issue appeared in stores before some backers got their copies.<\/p>\n

Since our pesky lack of time travel technology prevented them from sending the magazines back to a time before the issue appeared in stores, their only option was damage control. In most cases like this you\u2019re lucky if you get a free copy of something they can\u2019t sell or a discount if you give them more money. The people behind the reborn Heavy Metal<\/em> decided that they weren\u2019t just going to placate the people they disappointed, they were going to convert them. This led to the formation of The Angry Mob.<\/p>\n

The Angry Mob is a group on a platform called Circle that I wasn\u2019t previously familiar with. Everyone who backed the Kickstarter (whether you got the issue on time or not) is a member, and membership is closed unless the people in the Angry Mob decide to open it up to new member. The page itself is like any social media group, where members can chat and post art and get updates and all that stuff. It\u2019s also where you can get updates on the perks they\u2019re offering to members of the mob. The full details are still up in the air, but so far there\u2019s definitely a variant cover for issue #2, a discount on subscriptions, and a few other bells and whistles. They\u2019re also planning on some exclusive merchandise, in-person events, and other stuff.<\/p>\n

In other words, they\u2019re turning the people who might have gotten the magazine later than promised into their street team. It\u2019s a potentially risky move\u2014just what they\u2019ve done so far probably can\u2019t have been cheap, and every indication is that they plan to keep the Angry Mob around (and keep giving us special perks) indefinitely. Whether or not it\u2019s a smart business move ultimately depends on how many lemons they turn into lemonade with the tactic.<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019m writing this, you\u2019ve probably already guessed that it worked on me. If everything would have gone smoothly, the copy of the magazine I got from the Kickstarter probably would have gone into the pile and I\u2019d have read it a few years from now. Now I\u2019m going to have to read it sooner, because I took them up on their discounted subscription, so I\u2019ll want to read issue #1 before issue #2 shows up. I\u2019ve also been checking the group for updates at least once a week. Based on the amount of activity there, it seems like a lot of other people are doing the same.<\/p>\n

While I know from experience what a pain in the ass it is to deal with nerd rage, I suspect that they nerds are outnumbered by reasonable human beings. Because they went so far beyond expectations to deal with a problem that a lot of people didn\u2019t even realize was a problem, I\u2019m going to be more engaged with the magazine (and give them more money) than I would have if they\u2019d just mailed me a book on time. I hope I\u2019m in the majority, because at this point I want to see the new version of magazine succeed. Since it will mean more perks for me and the rest of the Angry Mob, I\u2019ve kind of got a personal stake in them doing well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back, I saw a Kickstarter for the return of Heavy Metal magazine. Since I\u2019ve always been at best a casual reader, I didn\u2019t realize it had gone anywhere. But I feel like Heavy Metal magazine something that should exist in the world, so I backed it. I back a bunch of Kickstarters, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,2007,3569],"tags":[452,1826,3799,3800],"class_list":["post-5044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-steve-patreon","category-potpourri","tag-comics","tag-heavy-metal","tag-customer-service","tag-angry-mob"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5044"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5048,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions\/5048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}